Numbers Theory

From EW:

Lost: The origin of the Numbers, revealed!
With your help, readers, we've solved Lost! Again! And just in time for a soul-crushing monthlong hiatus.

Stop reading right now if (a) you don't want your mind blown and (b) you prefer to remain in the dark about the origin of the mysterious recurrent Numbers.

I'm proud to say I can take some credit for this one. My recap of last week's episode included a link to a page about Ayers Rock, Australia's famous magnetic mound. (It figured big in last week's episode.) Now, I wasn't smart enough to understand the full impact of that link, but luckily, Ed Markel was. He submitted the following to our illustrious Doc Jensen, expert on all things Lost.

"The magnetic field of Ayers Rock was not strong enough to heal Rose, but the mag field of the Island was. The numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 are points along the Becker-Hagens Planetary Grid System. It's all kind of complicated and strange, but the final answer is the Island is located exactly at point 42 on the grid -- it's about halfway between Australia and the east side of the African continent.

"This magnetic stuff is pretty weird, if you read it all -- and there's a lot of it -- but the whole mystery of Lost is contained in these pages. Everything. The Dharma symbol -- the octagon -- is a Becker-Hagens grid. I'm kind of sad now that I have solved it, no more mystery."

No more mystery, Ed? Oh, I doubt that. Unless you're proficient in New Age sciento-theology, there are quite a few things left mysterious. For instance: Why are all the castaways magnetically attuned to the island? How did "magnetic fields" bring a small airplane all the way from Africa to the Southern Indian Ocean? And does Magnetic Fields frontman Stephin Merritt know about this theory? Is he behind it all? Does this explain why I get his songs stuck in my head?

More explanations, please. Clearly, we're going to need the full power of the collective consciousness to crack Lost. And after that's done, maybe we'll move on to priority two: world peace.